


Like an Alien Fish out of Water

by JustMeP



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Amnesiac Dean, Batcave, Brotherly Love, Bunker, Comedy, Gen, Gift Fic, Happy Ending, Humor, Light-Hearted, Memory Loss, Men of Letters Bunker, Prompt Fill, Psychic Fish (yes that's a tag now!), Season/Series 08, With a side of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustMeP/pseuds/JustMeP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Exhibit A: Dean is not Dean. Or he is, but he's not acting like Dean. Well, he's acting like Dean but not like... Dean. Sam gets what he means." Or, the one where Dean gets amnesia and it's all fun and games, until it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like an Alien Fish out of Water

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely wind_storms and her prompt (see end notes, because spoilers) as part of our personal pre-summergen challenge (yes, I'm doing it! *freaking out*). This could never have happened without her, starting with her great pre-challenge idea, her brilliant prompt and her encouragement and endless patience on betaing my non-native-speaker ass. You can thank her if you like it, or blame me if you don't. Thank you hon!

****"Who the hell are you?" is the first thing Dean says when he enters the kitchen in the morning. Which is annoying as hell, since Sam didn't even have his coffee yet, and despite a lifetime of handling Dean he prefers doing it after getting some caffeine in his system.  
  
"It's early, man, let me grab some coffee first," he answers tiredly on his way to the coffeemaker. They stayed out late last night for what was supposed to be a simple hunt and turned out to take much longer than anticipated. And much wetter. Dean was happy to just sink the bodies, but Sam insisted on keeping them and doing some research to identify the creature first. It's not every day they come up with something new, after all.  
  
"So listen, last night I found something. Good news is I think I identified this thing, but that's about it. It lays eggs, we need to go back to the lake and check it out," he says, now pouring some cream into his mug.

Silence.  
  
"Dean?"  
  
"Who the hell are you?" Dean asks again like a broken record, a hint of panic in his voice.  
  
Sam turns to look at him, irritated. "What game are you playing?" he asks, and really, it's way too early for this.  
  
"You tell me. What's going on here?" Dean asks, sounding baffled.  
  
Sam just stares at him for a moment. Dean could pull off all kinds of shit just for the heck of it, but this was too much even for him. "Dean?" he asks again carefully, now taking a step closer. Dean takes a step back in response, and man if he doesn't look scared.  
  
"I wake up in the morning in this dump, surrounded by weapons, no clue where I am. Followed the noise here to find this huge guy in the kitchen. So I'm thinking I'm not the one playing games here, buddy," comes his answer while taking another step back, almost tripping and looking as freaked out as Sam's starting to feel.  
  
"Alright, okay, calm down –" Sam starts, but Dean's already heading for the door. "Shit, where are you going?" he asks, but one glance at the general direction of the living room supplies him the answer. In all their time staying in the bunker they've never brought back anything with them, but of course today of all days they've got two very alien looking, very ugly, very dead creatures laying on the floor covered with bloody sheets.  
  
"It's a cult thing, isn't it? You drugged me and brought me here to end up like those poor guys! Well, guess what, pal, I'm not staying for the party!" Dean shouts and starts running towards the door. Sam follows and easily enough tackles him to the ground, holding him pinned to the floor, finding almost no resistance from the skilled hunter and if he still has doubts about this being a prank, they dissolved with how helpless Dean is.  
  
"Damn it, Dean, stop squirming! What's gotten into you –"  
  
"Don't touch me, you sick psycho!"  
  
"I'm not – Dean –"  
  
"Don't touch me, or I swear to god –"  
  
"What, Dean? What are you going to do? I'm stronger than you and holding you to the floor, what exactly are you going to do?"  
What little resistance Dean managed to supply dies out as Sam feels his muscles relaxing a little.

"Can I let go of you now?"

Dean refuses to answer. Sam sighs deeply but loosens his grip a little. "Right now, I'm the only one that can make sense of what's happening to you, so can you just stop fighting and listen? If you want to leave after, you're free to go," he says. That's a lie, of course, but no need to tell Dean that. If that's even Dean right now. Is it?  
  
Dean shifts his eyes but nods reluctantly, so Sam decides it's safe to let him loose, stands up and offers his hand. Dean gets off the floor but doesn’t take it.  
  
"Okay, good. Can we sit and talk?" he asks once Dean is back on his feet, his mind racing. Possession? Not a typical reaction from a ghost. Shifter's out of the question, a shifter would know he, well, shifted. And the bunker is warded anyway, so that doesn't leave that many options. There's always body switch, like what those crazy Wicca teens did to him back in the day, although Dean still sounds like... himself, in a way.  
  
Dean doesn't answer, and that freaks Sam out even more because if there's something Dean is certainly not, is quiet. "Now I  _know_  you're not shitting me. Man, sit down, you're making me nervous," he says, pointing at the kitchen table and reaches out a hand to offer what he aims to be a pat on the shoulder, which just makes his brother flinch. No touching, then.  
  
"Oh, I'm making  _you_  nervous?" Dean asks, still eyeing the door.  
  
"Right, Sorry. But here's the thing. Sometime between last night and this morning something happened to you. Now you either touched something you shouldn't have touched, or got body switched or cursed or –"  
  
"Cursed?" Dean asks, and Sam quickly tries to change the subject because confiding with Dean right now? Not the best idea.  
  
"Never mind, the thing is we need to find out how to reverse it."  
  
"No no no. This is not how we're playing this. You gonna explain to me right now who are you and what's going on cause I might have lost my memory but not my mind and this," he points at the soaked sheets, "is definitely not normal."  
  
Sam is now past cursing his bad luck and thanking god or whoever responsible – well, Dean, actually, when he thinks of it - that they covered the bodies ("Dude, it's staring at me. With three sets of eyes. If you want to play Doctor Frankenstein at least cover up the fugly!"), then he actually pays attention to what Dean says.  
  
Exhibit A: Dean is not Dean. Or he is, but he's not acting like Dean. Well, he's acting like Dean but not like... Dean. He gets what he means.  
  
Exhibit B: They ganked two unidentified creatures last night, only now he's pretty sure they're identified and called Zichrini, and all he knows about them besides looking like a huge fish (with three sets of eyes) is that they lays eggs.  
  
Exhibit C: Dean got covered with the creature's blood and possibly other body fluids from head to toe when he dragged one of them out of the lake and stabbed it, which resulted in the thing exploding like a dead whale. Which is actually a fascinating phenomenon, how the buildup of gas results in an explosion, or at least that what Sam thinks, but then again Sam finished off the second creature after he saw what happened with the first one and managed to mostly get away.  
  
Exhibit D: Dean claims to have lost his memory?  
  
Sam assess the situation quickly, and thinks that whatever is happening, he's not about to share it with Dean at the moment. So he tries stalling instead. "It's a long story, and honestly, it would be easier if we can just figure out what happened and reverse it," he says. But Dean, as he already noted, is still Dean.  
  
"Dude, as far as I'm concerned you brought me here to make me your sex slave or something, so I don't care if it's the fucking Lord of The Rings – spill," Dean says, and while his memory might be gone his attitude is still in place.  _And_  his knowledge of pop culture, apparently.  
  
"My what? Dude, no. Your name is Dean Winchester. This is the bunker – our, our home, I guess; you live here," Sam says,   
  
"Our home? Do I normally have dead bodies in my living room? Am  _I_  the serial killer?" Dean asks, and yes, his attitude is just fine, he couldn't just go and lose his memory and wake up someone easier.  
  
"Yes, I mean, no. Man, it's nothing like that. Listen, once we get you back to normal everything will make sense, okay?" Sam tries again, although he already knows by this point that Dean's not letting it go.  
  
"Are you even listening to yourself? Nothing about this is 'okay'! You – what do I call you?"  
  
"Sam, my name is Sam,"  
  
"Sam. Why do I have two dead bodies in my living room, again?"  
  
Sam sighs again which just seem to annoy Dean even more – still Dean, he already settled on that, and he thinks he just gave him a look that Dean would probably have labeled as his Bitch face. "It's what you do, what we do. We're hunters,"  
  
"Hunters?"  
  
"Of the supernatural – ghosts, vampires, demons. That sort of stuff," he says and neglects to add "like Buffy" in the last minute, because that reference was getting old even if this Dean never heard it before.  
  
"You're a ball of crazy," is all Dean says, and Sam is starting to get the feeling he's losing the argument.  
  
"You wanted the truth, you're getting it. Those are Zichrini in the next room, I think," he explains.  
  
"Zech- what?"  
  
"Zichrini. It's an aberration, an aquatic race –"  
  
"Zech- What?" Dean repeats, and yeah, maybe not the right time for the lore.  
  
"Psychic fish," Sam says, simply.  
  
"Right. Yeah. Look, I better get going, you seem to have your hands full. Good luck with the – Zucchini," Dean says and his expression now is sympathetic, almost pitying.  
  
" _Zichrini,_ it's Hebrew for Forget-me-not. The flower probably got its name from the creature or – never mind. Listen, I know it sounds crazy but you wanted the truth. You have a better explanation? Why is it you're here, not knowing who you are?"  
  
Dean opens his mouth to answer but doesn't make a sound, and that again reminds Sam how very not-okay the situation is.  
  
"Are you my boyfriend?" he suddenly asks, making Sam choke on his coffee.  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Boyfriend, you and me –"  
  
"No! Why does everybody - why do you –"  
  
"I found a duffle in the room. Some of the stuff is probably mine but it had some clothes that were like XXXLarge or something,"  
  
"No! God Dean, no. I'm your  _brother_."  
  
"Oh," Dean blushes. Honest to God blushes, and Sam marvels that Dean's face is even capable of it because Sam has never seen it happen before. "Oh! Good! Because I don't swing that way – I know that much – but I saw the stuff and just, forget it, okay?"  
  
"Oh trust me, I will,"  
  
"Good."  
  
"Good."

 

* * *

It takes some more persuading, but Dean finally decides to stay. Mainly, Sam suspects, because he's got nowhere else to go. He still doesn't believe him, though, even after seeing the bodies of the freakishly enormous alien-psychic-fish. Sam doesn't suspect it, his brother is saying it loud and clear over and over again. At some point he offers to help find him a good psychiatrist, until Sam points out that Dean barely knows his own name so they can share a room in the mental ward. That shuts him up for a good ten minutes.

Once Sam is over the initial shock, it's a little funny, to be honest. Their lives were always crazy for an outsider, and Dean with no memory is basically a civilian. They've had their fair share of weird spells, but amnesia was a new one and Dean having it means some downtime Dean refused to even consider before, and a lifetime of ammunition against him once he's back to normal. Because amusing as it is, Sam started on research the minute Dean calmed down enough to agree to join him in the library.  
  
"Hey Sam," Dean calls from upstairs, "What's with all the salt? You said we're in Kansas, how much snow you get down here?" he asks.  
  
"It's for protection," Sam answers absentmindedly without raising his eyes from his laptop, ready to close another useless tab on his browser. You'd think that an 18 foot psychic fish-like amphibian would be easy to find, but he keeps ending up on D&D Wiki pages describing the creature, there called Aboleth. That is until something catches his eyes.  
  
 _"Another strange feature of Aboleths is their memory. An Aboleth is born with a racial memory, each individual inheriting the memories of its ancestors. Furthermore, it assimilates the memories of those it consumes."_  
  
Bingo. Sure it's a stupid D &D site, but they get their lore from somewhere and – a huge BANG interrupts Sam's stream of thought, like a gun fired in a closed space. Actually, exactly like a gunshot in a closed space.  
  
"Dean!" Before he knows it Sam's running up the stairs towards Dean's bedroom, expecting – he doesn't even know what he's expecting, so it's closer to praying. He enters the room to find a very stunned looking, pale, seemingly unharmed ( _thank-god--I'm-going-to-kill-him--thank-god_ ) Dean.  
  
"Dean! What the hell?!" he yells, suppressing the urge to hug him because – God.  
  
It takes a moment for Dean to regain control over his voice. "I was just checking it out and it went off! Why is it even loaded?!"  
  
"I don't know why it's loaded, it's your gun! You could have shot yourself!"  
  
"Figured that much," Dean says, color slowly coming back to his cheeks and he's grinning.  _He's grinning._ Sam probably just lost two – make it three years of his life – and Dean's got his best, shit-eating grin directed straight at him.  
  
His first instinct is still to kill him just on the principle. Instead, he laughs. To his surprise, Dean joins him.

 

* * *

It's been two days, and he should have thought about this by now, he really should have. But he's got his hands full both on research and on – there's no other way to put it but babysitting Dean. So you really can't blame Sam that he didn't consider this ever happening.

  
"Dean." Comes a gruff voice from behind the two of them, and Dean practically jumps from his chair.  
  
"Where did you come from?!" he asks with wide eyes, now facing Castiel holding a knife that came from nowhere. Sam was one hundred percent sure he Dean-proofed the bunker and locked away all the weapons in the Impala after the first incident, he just seemed to forget the goddamn knife Dean keeps under his pillow. Dean apparently didn't, and he definitely found it and carried it with him.  
  
Castiel tilts his head slightly, examining Dean and ignoring Sam completely while Sam jumps to his feet too, ready to restrain Dean if needed.  
  
"Hey, Dean, calm down. It's just Cas," Sam says, carefully reaching for the knife in Dean's hands. And really, what is it with his amnesiac brother and weapons?  
  
Cas tilts his head even more now and if he goes an inch farther Sam is sure it's going to turn on the spot like an owl. He doesn't, however, just keeps his piercing gaze fixed at his brother. Well, at least he's acting normal, for a change.  
  
"Sam?" Cas half asks, now pointing the same wary gaze at Sam.  
  
"Hey, Cas," he says, offering a small smile. "We've got a bit of a situation,"  
  
"Question still stands, where did he come from?" Dean asks, looking irritated and at the same time embarrassed from Cas' staring.  
  
Castiel comes closer, not shifting his gaze and Dean is clearly uncomfortable now. "Dude, personal space!" he calls and Sam can't suppress a chuckle. It's weird, how Dean with no memories at all is completely Dean nonetheless.  
  
"Dean, this is Cas. He's… it's a bit complicated, but he's – well, an Angel," Sam explains and if Dean's reaction for this was bad the first time around, this time it's a complete disaster.  
  
It takes quite a while to settle things down and for Sam to manage to brief Cas of Dean's current condition and for Cas to assure Dean (again?) that no, he doesn't have a halo; Yes, he does have wings; No, he's not going to show them to him; And no, he's certain he doesn't have a stick up his ass; Sam suspects that even Cas gets the meaning of that phrase as he seems almost offended by it. Soon enough he leaves, though, since it wasn't a social call to begin with but he doesn't tell Sam what information he had either, asking – ordering? him to fix Dean first.

 

* * *

"It just doesn't make any sense, how you telling me about me is going to make me me again?" And that sentence just makes Sam's headache worse.

  
"We've been through this. The poison's effect will regress now that the Zichrini's dead and can't feed on your memories, but it's going to take a while for it to clear out of your system. The lore does note that triggering the memory should expedite it," Sam explains again, probably for the fourth time now.  
  
It's been five days. Five exhausting days with a Dean that is Dean but also isn't Dean, with explaining every little detail and following him around in the bunker because apparently his brother's common sense also got lost along the way, or was never actually there to begin with.  
  
"All I'm saying is that we can wait for it to wear off," Dean tries again. It's strange, Sam thinks, to be the appropriate adult, in a manner of speaking. Dean is disoriented, who can blame him, and for the first time in his life Sam is the one making the decisions for the both of them, even if they're just hanging in the bunker.  
  
"Just give it another chance, okay?" Sam asks.   
  
He's been going through hunts with Dean for the past couple days, told him that they needed to try and trigger his memory since they have to go get rid of the Zichrini eggs and get back to dealing with the bigger issues on their hands – although he refused to get into details (what's the point, anyway?). Which was true. What's also true is that Sam misses Dean, even while he's standing right there next to him. Not just hunter Dean making the decisions, or big brother Dean. Plain Dean.  
  
His brother shrugs his shoulders but it's enough for Sam to take it as a yes.  
  
"Did I tell you about that one time when Bobby –" he starts, but Dean cuts him off.  
  
"Is Bobby the Pastor?" Dean asks and Sam immediately regrets trying this again. It was hard enough introducing Dean to the people in their lives just to tell him they're all dead by now. Dean mixing up their names just proves Dean's right. Maybe they should just wait for it to wear off on its own. The lore isn't very specific but in all cases the memory loss for the surviving victims is described to pass "by the new moon", so maybe a week is a bit optimistic but it can't be more than a month.

Sam's expression doesn't go unnoticed, and Dean sighs in frustration.  
  
"I just don't see the point, is all," he says, and before Sam can protest he continues. "Look, I get it. I'm Dean Winchester, I'm a hunter, I'm awesome. We hunt things, save people, family business. All that crap."  
  
With each word Sam's heart sinks a little, but he doesn't interrupt, can't think of anything to say anyway.  
  
"I've seen enough in the last few days to believe all that. I also heard enough to know it doesn't sound so sweet, you know? Every single person you mentioned is dead, hell, I'm surprised we're still alive."  
  
And Sam probably gives something away with his expression, because Dean pauses for a moment, giving him a curious look, and Sam's wishing he would just stop talking.  
  
"I get that it's not natural and that you want your brother back, I do, but man, I'm not so sure I want to be that guy again."  
  
"Dean –"  
  
"Maybe it's better this way. I know you said it would wear off eventually and I'll go back to normal, whatever normal is, but maybe it won't. Maybe this can be a fresh start, not just for me. You cannot want this, man, look at you. I don't even know you but you've got the brains, there must be something else you want to do with your life."  
  
It hurts, but there's also something almost comforting in Dean's words. That, Sam thinks, that's Dean. Dean without the memories of Dad ordering him around, Dean that didn't grow up to be a solider, who can't remember seeing their mom on the ceiling, didn't spend forty years in Hell or a year in Purgatory. A Dean who didn't lose their mom at four, their dad at twenty-seven, Ellen and Jo at thirty, Lisa and Ben at thirty one, Bobby at thirty three. A Dean with no Michael and Lucifer, no Azazel, no Alastair, no selling his soul. No monsters, no angels, no demons, no nothing.  
  
And it's tempting to agree. To just drop everything, take this as an opportunity to go live a normal life, the life that Dean mocks as apple-pie life. Thing is, his brother  _loves_  apple pie. It's a nice image. He's a bit too old for sorority parties, but there were older guys than him in college. He can finish school, Dean can – do whatever he wants, really, probably something to do with pie and cars and maybe combining the two and making car shaped pies or the other way around. A few years back, he would have taken the offer and wouldn't have looked back. But this is now and they've lost too much, sacrificed too much to stop now. Not with the tablets, the trials, their one opportunity to really finish this and close the gates of Hell.  
  
"I'm sorry," Dean finally says, which is another strange thing that Dean does these days.  
  
"It's okay, it's not your fault. You really don't remember?" Sam asks, and by now he's not sure what he wants for an answer.  
  
"Sorry, man, it's just... blank,"  
  
"I know, I'm sorry, it's just – we can't. I wish I could tell you you're right, I really do. Hell, a few years back I would have. It's like when we were little and you kept telling me the monsters under my bed weren't real, until you had to tell me they were. It's weird being the one saying this, but we have to keep going. There's stuff you still don't know, but maybe when it's over –"  
  
"Damn it Sammy, what does that even mean?" Dean says, his brow raising.  
  
"What did you say?"  
  
"I asked –"  
  
"I know what you asked. You also called me Sammy."  
  
"I won't if it bothers you. Look, I'm just tired. Let's call it a day."  
  
Sam is grinning now, and he doesn't mind a bit that Dean's looking at him like he's a total maniac. "Of course it bothers me. Sammy is a chubby 12 year old, and there's only one person who gets to call me that."  
  
And while it might take a little longer, he knows they're going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was: Dean has been cursed by a witch (or an artifact he found in the bunker or whatever) to have amnesia for a week. At first Sam thinks it's funny - Dean's reactions to everything supernatural related, then Sam's exasperated trying to explain the hunting life to him/protect him, then he's sad because he just wants his brother to be his brother again. Conversation about past brotherly moments trying to trigger Dean's memory.


End file.
